Our Rookie Firefighter – The Sweat Bee

I’ve had the privilege, opportunity, and burden to have the newest rookie hired on shift for the last 6 months. Ok, burden…may be a bit sarcastic, but you know how those energetic, skillful, and educated young guys are.

First, Charlie our rookie will be referred to as the Sweat Bee because a few months back, he called the rest of the crew, hornets. We asked what he meant and he said , “you guys are being dicks for no reason, like a hornet.” The whole interaction was all in good firehouse fun and we quickly decided to nickname him the Sweat Bee since he doesn’t really have a firehouse stinger yet.

We’ve done a bunch of training with the Sweat Bee since he’s been with us full-time and will continue for years to come. He started full-time after a year full-time at another department and several years of part-time experience. The Sweat Bee also has a solid foundation of technical rescue training.

The basics along with physical fitness and some technical rescue have been part of our daily trainings. Today for example, the crew did some S&R, hose advancement, aerial ladder ops, and threw some ground ladders.

On another note, the Sweat Bee usually receives an evening call or two from his fiancee, who by the way is a busy pharmacy student. She also bakes us some awesome desserts that can only be metabolized by moving more. For some reason when the Sweat Bee’s fiancee calls, his little wings carry him out to the apparatus bay away from the hornet stingers. We tend to check up on him after a while to make sure he is fully listening to his soon to be wife.

It will be fun to continue working with the Sweat Bee and watch his professional and firehouse stinger development. We’ll keep you updated with the progress and summarize his first year towards summer.